The encounter at the lake remained in the back of Gourry's mind. While with time he grew more certain that the idea that he'd knocked Lina up by making a wish while swimming in a lake was preposterous, the idea of settling down one day and starting a family remained attractive. Perhaps one day Lina would even tire of the life of vagabond and settle down!

It remained a nice fantasy as they shared their days together. They were young and had plenty of time. And he took his duties as her protector seriously. He even tracked her cycles because she was rather bad at warning him and with the lives they led it was imperative to know when they were vulnerable. He'd been up a creek one too many times when they were attacked and he'd learned too late that her magic was on the fritz and he couldn't rely on her to hold her own.

So when they were accosted by a group of bandits a few weeks after the encounter at the lake on day twenty-eight of her cycle, he knew better than to expect much from her and started to prepare accordingly only for Lina to surprise them all by launching a volley of Flare Arrows at them.

As they walked away from the charred bandits (and after checking to see if they had any treasure), Gourry commented, "Not that I mind, but shouldn't it be that time of the month when you don't have your magic?"

Lina blushed, "What are you talking about?"

"It's day twenty-eight…"

"Do you count them!?" Lina yelled.

"It's part of the job of being your protector," he said as he plopped his hand on her head, undeterred by her anger.

Lina sighed irritability, "It's not always clockwork you know. Lots of things can affect them. Such as stress."

"But have you been stressed?" Gourry didn't want to say out loud that things seemed calm for once. He didn't want to jinx it.

"I don't think it's anything to worry about." Lina said. "Anyway, with the gold we looted from those ruffians, let's go get lunch!"

"Lunch sounds good." He said with a smile, "Still, let me know when that time of the month is so I can be prepared."

Lina's blush abated a little as she sighed, "Right, right, come on, I'm hungry!"

It niggled at the back of his mind, but if Lina wasn't worried then why should he be? Lina was smarter than him after all. He wasn't even sure what purpose a woman's cycle served, he knew it was tied to their ability to have babies somehow but not much beyond that. Perhaps as they grew older they became spaced further apart or went away for awhile.

Yet Lina never came to him with a warning to be alert, and her magic remained dependable. It was strange, but Lina didn't seem concerned about it, so he didn't feel that he should be. Well, not completely. There was this small part of him that started to wonder if there was some unintended consequences to the visit to the lake. But then the idea that he truly could have impregnated her by making a wish while swimming in a lake with her was so ridiculous that he figured there had to be some other explanation, he was just too stupid to see it! Surely if something as drastic as Lina magically getting knocked up had happened she would have realized it by now. She was the smart one.

The weeks turned to months and Lina's clothes grew tighter and he wondered if she was going through some sort of growth spurt. And then she came down to breakfast one morning with her stomach protruding forward, like a pregnant woman's, and Gourry nearly spit out his morning tea. But surely there had to be another reason, or he only thought she looked pregnant because he made a stupid wish and she was just getting fat...

"Oh look at your sweet little belly!" A waitress said as she ran up to touch Lina's stomach as she approached the table.

"Excuse me!" Lina said as she batted her hand away.

"Oh don't be shy, mama, in our town it's considered good luck to touch a pregnant woman's belly." The waitress said.

Lina glared daggers at her as she kept her arms around her stomach as she said in a low voice, "But I'm not pregnant."

The waitress gulped as she shrank before the sorceress as flames flew from Lina's ears, "I'm sorry, so sorry, I uh, I see now…"

"I want a refund for the night, free breakfast and lunch to go! All on the house!" Lina declared.

Tears started to form in the waitresses eyes as she said, "Yes, miss. Right away miss!"

"Really!" Lina said as she plopped down on the chair beside Gourry, "How could anyone think that I, a beautiful maiden, am pregnant!?"

"Yeah, your boobs are as small as always."

Lina smacked him upside the head, "You're not helping."

"You have been different lately though." Gourry said as an unsettled feeling rose within him. Because while he still couldn't bring himself to believe that he had knocked her up via a lake, she looked pregnant! But then what if that was because she was sick?

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you've missed, what, six times of the months?"

A strange look passed over Lina's face, but instead of blushing she turned white, "Has it been that many?"

"Perhaps you should see a doctor, get things checked out." He suggested as he prayed that she would let him off the hook from mentioning the weight gain. Periods were a touchy enough subject, weight gain was a hell no!

"I guess we can before we leave town." Lina said, and Gourry felt better. Surely if he had somehow impregnated her via lake the doctor would find out, and if not he could put this matter to rest while treating what was really wrong with Lina!

Lina hadn't been oblivious to the weight gain. She had been frustrated over it, especially as it never seemed to reach her boobs. It seemed that despite all of the hiking she did and magic she used, her eating habits were catching up to her.

Even still, when she put her hands on her stomach, it didn't feel like fat. It felt hard! And within her it was as though there was a ball she could feel pressing on her internal organs. And between that and her missing cycles a sense of fear rose within her.

When she was growing up one of her friend's mothers thought she was going to have a baby. Her cycles stopped and her stomach grew round and hard just like Lina's was now. Only as her stomach grew she became weaker and more frail and took to her bed where she eventually died. When they cut her open to attempt to save the baby they found that she wasn't pregnant at all but had a massive tumor in her stomach.

What if she had stomach cancer!?

All thing considered she was feeling good! But what if she was just more robust than her friend's mother?

So that was how she found herself agreeing to Gourry's suggestion to see a doctor. And even though Lina was not comfortable discussing these things with a man, given that the town only had a male doctor it wasn't as though she had a lot of choice. Besides, doctors surely were used to hearing about women's cycles! She couldn't have been the first.

"Hello!" a middle aged man said as he walked into the examination room and balanced a clipboard on his hip, "I'm Doctor Larry. How can I help you today?"

Oh boy, how do I even explain this? Lina thought as she took a deep breath, "Okay, first I'm a maiden. So there's no way that I'm pregnant."

Doctor Larry's eyebrows hit his hair line as he looked at Lina skeptically. "Wait a minute, didn't you come in with that tall, handsome man in the waiting room?"

"Who, Gourry?" Lina said, and then with a hint of sadness that she did not truly understand she admitted, "It's not like that."

"So what is he your brother?"

"He's my protector!" Lina said as she blushed a little as he stared at her stomach, "And he has nothing to do with this! But I've missed a few periods and I'm gaining weight and I just want to make sure this isn't cancer."

"Cancer?" Doctor Larry replied, and then it looked as though a light clicked on and he winked at her conspiratorially. "I see, you're wanting to get out of trouble."

"What?" Lina said as she shook her head in confusion.

"Lie back a minute."

Lina looked stupefied for a moment but did as asked, and Doctor Larry walked over and felt her abdomen. "It's progressed a bit far for tea. But if you travel two towns west there's a woman name Veronica who can help."

"What, so I have cancer?" Lina asked.

"You are in some denial, honey," Doctor Larry said, which only confused Lina more. And then she grew cold as Doctor Larry continued as he moved his arms in a manner reminiscent of one rocking a baby to sleep, "Look, we both know perfectly well this isn't cancer. Whether you go to Veronica or not you're going to be just fine."

Lina walked up to Gourry in the waiting room, feeling more alarmed and confused than when she walked in. While Doctor Larry hadn't thought it was cancer he seemed to think that she was pregnant. But that was impossible! Had Doctor Larry missed something? Or was something weird going on? She'd been too embarrassed to grill him and make him check again. "Let's go."

"Everything okay?" Gourry asked as he stood up and followed her out of the office.

Lina couldn't tell him that the doctor seemed to believe she was pregnant. It was too embarrassing. And would Gourry believe her that she'd never had sex? He'd certainly know that they hadn't done it! For some reason she was scared that he would feel that she had cheated on him if the possibility of her being pregnant was entertained, even though they weren't romantic. And she didn't want him to think that of her.

"Oh, just some women's issues." Lina said, "The doc said it'll be fine."

"Oh good, I was worried you were pregnant or something!" Gourry said.

"How can I be pregnant?" Lina yelled, "I'm an innocent maiden!"

"I know that," Gourry said, and Lina could not begin to describe how much relief she felt to hear it from him, "But we live in a world where magic exists…"

"There are no spells to impregnate random maidens." Lina said.

"Well, okay, but with strange artefacts and lakes, couldn't something like this happen?"

"Gourry, of all the people you know how would I be prime material for a virgin birth?" Lina asked.

"Well that is pretty funny now that you mention it." Gourry said with a smile.

"Exactly."

"So, where are we off to now?" Gourry asked.

Lina opened her mouth to speak, but as soon as she thought about going west to see Veronica a lump formed in her throat. She didn't understand it but the desire to protect rose within her and the thought of going west was unthinkable. So when she spoke she simply said, "East."

The discussion she'd had with Gourry about virgin births stayed with Lina as she continued to grow. There were plenty of stories about virgin births but none that could really be substantiated. Through out history plenty of women had reason to claim not to know how they became pregnant even when they knew good and well how it had happened afterall. But Lina also couldn't discount the possibility that there was a way for it to legitimately happen in their world. Even then surely something like that wouldn't happen to her. Sylphiel, perhaps, someone who was a priestess type. But not to Lina Inverse, the Dragon Spooker, the Bandit Killer, the Enemy of All Who Lives.

Not unless evil forces were involved.

Perhaps, if that was the case, she should have seen Veronica...

But strangely the thought of seeing Veronica just felt wrong, and she didn't understand any of it! She needed more information. She needed to see a doctor. But she was too embarrassed. But looking at herself in the mirror and seeing her belly getting rounder each day was terrifying. Perhaps if they could get to Seyruun she could talk to Amelia and she could help. They'd started heading that way but they were about as far from Seyruun as one could get. And every time she would think of it she would get so anxious about it that she would feel as though someone was popping popcorn in her belly.

Or is that a baby kicking?

Lina put a hand on her belly. Was this cancer? A baby? A hellspawn of a demon lord? Or something else entirely? One thing she was fairly sure of was that cancer didn't kick.

She looked over at the mirror that was in her room and took a deep breath. She was brave. She'd faced down Shabranigdo and Hellmaster. She could face this. She got up and walked in front of the mirror and undid the clasps on her shirt and pulled it up so she could look at her belly. For awhile nothing happened. But then she felt something shift within and saw the imprint of a fist pushing through her skin. She gasped as she put a hand on her mouth as her stomach visibly shifted in time with the popcorn bursts within her.

It was now undeniable. There was something in there!

This couldn't be good! Her messing in the dark forces. What if it had resulted in this? What if whatever she was carrying would destroy the world? What if she should have seen Veronica? Was it too late? What if…what if it was innocuous? Just a harmless little baby?

She watched silently as she waited for her initial panic to subside so she could listen to her intuition. And as she settled down she realized she felt no sense of malevolence. Whatever was inside her did not feel evil! And if she were someone like Sylphiel then it would make sense.

But she was Lina Inverse. This couldn't be any good.

She pulled her shirt back together and sighed as she put her hands on her belly. How long had it been now since she'd had her period? Eight months? She barely would have enough time to get to Seyruun. She was just going to have to suck it up and try another doctor to confirm whether or not this was a typical pregnancy. And she would have to tell Gourry. Fortunately after their conversation about virgin births she knew that while everyone else on the planet might laugh in disbelief, at least he would believe her.